


sliver

by Chainsawlicker



Category: Boondock Saints (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Codependency, Injury, M/M, Sibling Incest, Twincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 13:28:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17623247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chainsawlicker/pseuds/Chainsawlicker
Summary: Never in his life did he think he’d see Macho Murphy MacManus begging for anything. His heart trembles at the sight of it.





	sliver

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place 18 months after the Yakavetta trial and ignores the second movie.
> 
> Thanks to DrSchaf for all the help and powerful critiquing skills.

"It was bound to happen, you know? But I’d fallen out of the habit of expecting it. Especially when they weren’t even on a goddamn job. And on a Wednesday, for chrissake.”

“That first job, after the Yakavetta courtroom deal, when the Old Man bought the farm - single bullet right through the center of his forehead. That was the first time the Fucked Pager beeped. I honestly thought they were joking with me. Because it was the first fucking job. I mean, Jesus Christ, who would’ve thought it?”

“The boys cried. And prayed. But I always thought they seemed relieved. There was always a subtle difference with Noah around - as if it was too crowded. Maybe because he just joined up with them and hadn’t ‘Received The Calling’. Not that I believe in that happy bullshit, you know that. But they do and it gets the job done so I deal with the pennies and prayers. It’s just that, in my gut, I always felt they’d just rather not have the Old Man around.”

“So there was that. Noah dying, I mean. Then sixteen months of nothing. Just evil men getting dead without all the fucking red tape.”

He hangs his head and runs his hands through his dirty hair. He sighs and looks out the window. It’s raining. This week’s flower arrangement is still fresh; simple daisies because they were his favorite, a spark of color against the gloom outside. He shifts in the uncomfortable chair and drinks some water from a plastic cup with one of those flexible straws. It’s quiet, except for the occasional beeping of the machines.

He gathers his thoughts. “So yeah, I was asleep at home when I heard it.”

***

It’s the Fucked Pager. The Fucked Pager. He fumbles for it. His hand shakes as he dials the number.

Murphy answers on the first ring, voice gruff, full of panic and sounding like he’s speaking another language. He has to ask for the address twice. They’re hiding in the shadows of a strip mall, stores all closed in the middle of the night. He phones the doctor. Not _a_ doctor. The doctor. The kind who will come to your hotel or safe house and work for cash.

He phones Dolly immediately after, barking out orders. At his front door, knob cold under his fingers, he forces himself to stop, breathe, make sure he has everything he needs: addresses, gun, money, badge, pagers.

They come towards him before the car has properly stopped. Murphy, shirtless and mostly carrying Connor who is half bent over.

He opens the door and lifts Connor’s leg to help him in. His hand comes away wet and red. He stares at the blood dripping off the ridge of his palm, staining his shirt sleeve. He freezes, momentarily transported...

rain and the bite of asphalt on his knees, reaching, terror crawling up his throat, touching, a handful of blood, a pool spreading out, hair floating in it, staring blindly at his bloodied hand, someone screaming, him screaming

Murphy calls his name from the backseat.

He shakes the image away and looks into the back of his car. Murphy presses a blood-soaked rag - his shirt - against Connor’s right side, but moves the cloth away to show him the knife sticking out of Connor.

He pulls out of the parking lot before Murphy even has the door closed. It slams in the middle of his U-turn. He uses his siren, disregarding the danger of attracting the attention of other officers. “Dialogues des Carmelites” is playing. He turns it off and listens instead to Connor’s ragged, shallow breathing and Murphy’s voice whispering in languages he doesn’t know.

His hands get fucking bloody again, helping Murphy carry Connor into the shitty little safe house. A drop of it, dark in the faint light splats on one of his Stacy Adams, soaking into the laces and ruining them. Duffy and Dolly and the doctor are already there, waiting for them at the back door. They make it to the bedroom and lay Connor on the bed. The doctor bends over him.

He tries obtaining some information, but Murphy is distraught and frantic and all he manages to understand is that they’d been at a bar and ‘some fucking arsehole stabbed Connor for no fucking reason.’ He sends Dolly and Duffy off to figure out what the fuck happened and clear out the brother’s current hotel room. Then he just hovers around, being useless.

Connor is unconscious, face pale, torso streaked with blood. A dark bruise covers part of his shoulder above the collarbone. The doc works on his left side, hooking up IVs, extracting the knife. Murphy kneels on the other side of the bed, wearing both of their rosaries and praying them in whispered Latin, beads bloody and clicking together, background music for the prayers.

He hovers.

When the doctor is finished, they move into the small kitchen and sit around a grimy table, formica and yellowed with age. As he listens to the doctor lay out the situation, he keeps his eyes on Murphy. Several emotions flit across Murphy’s face as the doctor speaks, but he stays seated, vibrating with tension.

Connor has a partially collapsed lung and two cracked or broken ribs. The knife had skated and stuck between two ribs, cracking and possibly breaking them, but not allowing the blade to slide all the way in. The doctor is unable to tell the extent of the damage without an x-ray. If Connor doesn’t show signs of recovery within the next eight hours, the options are death or the hospital and subsequently jail. It’s wait and see.

He fucking hates ‘wait and see’.

The doc writes out instructions, explaining things. He listens closely. Beside him, Murphy fingers the rosaries and chews on his bottom lip, head cocked towards the bedroom. He rereads the directions, then asks the doc what to do about the shoulder bruise; if he should be taking care of it in some way. Next to him, Murphy jerks upright in his chair, smacking his hand awkwardly into the table.

The doc laughs. “Don’t worry about that. Pretty sure it’s a sex bruise.” He leans over the table, winking. “If you get close enough, you can see the teeth marks.”

His jaw drops open with an audible crack. He looks towards Murphy, but he is already fleeing. The chair, knocked over in his haste, crashes to the linoleum. He doesn’t miss the blush on Murphy’s face though. Fuck. Having never seen them with girls, he had figured that with their fucking devotion and all, they were celibate. But all this time, they were buying prostitutes. He guesses. Or going to sex clubs.

Ideas like these about the twins seem ludicrous, but the evidence is on Connor’s body. He makes a mental note to look Murphy over. With nothing to do but wait, gathering evidence to lord over them later is a way to pass the time better than worrying.

The doc leaves for the night.

He hovers and watches Murphy pray until Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum come back. They bring in everything from the twin’s hotel room, one bag of guns and two of clothes, and dump them in the living room. They move to the kitchen and sit down with Smecker around the gross table.

Duffy sighs. ‘It’s like Murphy said, some guy stabbed Connor. No one knew why, a bad joke maybe? But, then...”  He takes a deep breath. “Murphy fucking shot the guy.”

He screams ‘what’ so loudly, they shush him.

Duffy finishes, “Bar patrons said the guy stabbed Connor, and Murphy pulled a gun and shot him in the face. Like with no hesitation, just an automatic reaction. Connor is stabbed and three seconds later, the dude is dead. Then Murphy held everyone at gunpoint while he dragged Connor out. Did he not tell you any of this?”

“No. He’s been, you know, praying. A fucking dead guy complicates matters. Fuck.” He puts his head in his hands and thinks about how lucky he is that Greenly is on vacation. At least, he doesn’t have to deal with fucking Greenly.

“One of you go check on them,” he says without looking up. Nobody moves. “Fucking now.” he snaps.

Dolly scampers up and heads out of the kitchen. Duffy leans back and looks at him. “You okay? We can deal with the dead guy. Boys will need to lay low for a while, though. If Connor makes...nevermind.”

He stares at a brown ring some long ago coffee cup had stained into the table. Everything smells stale and faintly like garbage. He wants to wash his hands.

Duffy says, “They’re weirder than I thought.”

“The brothers?”

“Yeah.” Duffy grins over. “You know they sleep together?”

They sleep together. Sleep together. Sleep together.

“How’s that?” He grins back because Duffy is just trying to lighten the mood.

“Like in the same bed. The room had two doubles, but one was still all made up and had their bags on it. And you could tell that two people were using the second bed. I mean, I always knew they were super close, but… There was also just one toothbrush. Like they share. A toothbrush.”

He and Gordon shared a toothbrush once, in that creepy motel where their car broke down and the drugstore just had one toothbrush and they’d shared it and later in the shower, in the shower…droplets of water dripping from the ends of his hair, cheek and chest pressed to wet tiles, the sound of water falling, his voice, his breath.

“Well, it’s none of our business, Duffy. They also share a love for killing bad guys, so let’s just keep our mouths shut about toothbrushes and such.”

***

The intercom crackles to life. He looks at where it’s mounted on the wall and waits. It falls silent again. Just a mistake, probably. There weren’t many STAT calls in this place. Not like back at the hospital. He gets up from the uncomfortable chair and goes to look out at the rain.

There’s a knock at the door and a nurse comes in. It’s Amanda. He likes her. She is kind and has a nice smile. Usually they chat, but he goes out for a cigarette instead while she moves through medical routines and procedures that he tries not to think about.

She’s gone when he returns. He adjusts the lamp and looks at this week’s flowers again, straightens his tie. He sits and continues.

***

Duffy stays with Connor while he drags Murphy, still shirtless and bloody, to the bathroom.

“Clean up, Murphy.” He hands him a washcloth.

Murphy holds it limpy, staring into space, then turns on the water and begins to wash. He flexes his shoulder to get his elbow and there, on the round part of his shoulder where it meets the arm, he has fading bruises, a series of four similar, long marks, like fingers.

He grins. More evidence that the MacManus boys do indeed get it on somewhere with someones. He points to the bruises with a raised eyebrow and Murphy blushes again. An image forms in his mind—Murphy on his hands and knees, a set of strong fingers curling around his shoulder, digging in, gripping hard.

He’s so curious. He has to know what kind of weird sex shit these good catholic boys are into, but when he looks at Murphy, he isn’t blushing anymore. He looks troubled. His fresh shirt dangles from one hand and his eyes are focused on the floor.

Murphy lifts his head, chews at his lower lip and asks, “If we go to prison, what are the chances we would be separated?”

“One hundred percent.”

Murphy stands very still with his head down again and grips the two rosaries. When he looks up, his mouth is a hard line. “I’m gonna check on Con, then… It would be safe to step onto the back porch and smoke, aye?”

Outside in the cool night air they sit on old lawn chairs whose color faded away years ago, listening to the crickets.

Halfway through his cigarette, Murphy clears his throat and says with a low voice, “We need a favor. We need ye to do something for us. I need ye to promise me. Ye aren’t gonna want to do it, but ye have to. Ye will have to, understand?”

“I will do whatever I can to help you boys, Murphy. You know that.”

“We are not going to the hospital. That’s not an option. So either everything will be okay or it won’t.” Murphy flicks ash onto the porch. “Con and I, we’ve always had this idea that if one of us dies - the other would too.”

Bugs buzz around the bare bulb overhead. They smoke.

Eventually, Murphy says, “That’s probably not going to happen.”

He agrees and they listen to the crickets and the buzzy bugs. In the distance, a train horn howls.

Murphy leans forward, finding his eyes. Murphy’s own are see-through blue, bloodshot and pleading. “I need ye to promise us something, Paul.”

They never call him Paul.

He says nothing and lets Murphy continue. “Yer not gonna want to. But ye have to. We _need_ ye to.”

He waits. His mind is already working through the logistics of how to get Connor’s body back to Ireland. He feels sure that’s what Murphy is about to ask of him.

 “If Connor dies, I need ye to kill me.”

He hears an ambulance somewhere, the crickets. He’s thirsty. His head is shaking ‘no’ without input from his brain.

“I can’t do it myself. It’s a mortal sin. What if Connor doesn’t go to hell? We probably will. I think we will, but what if he doesn’t? And I’ve committed a mortal sin. Don’t ye see? We’d be separated. Fucking _separated_. Ye have to - to make sure. We need ye to. It’s the only way. Can’t ye see that?”

“Murphy. No. No. I can’t. You can't ask me to do that. Connor wouldn’t want-“

Murphy scoots to the edge of his chair, the aluminum frame protesting with a creak. His eyes well with tears. “He does. He does. Of course he does. It’s the only way. Please. I can’t live without him. Don’t want to. Won’t. We have to _stay together no matter what._ Don’t ye understand? We only want to make sure whenever we go, we go together.  We can’t do that without yer help. Please help us. _Please._ ”

Never in his life did he think he’d see Macho Murphy MacManus begging for anything. His heart trembles at the sight of it.

“Murphy... I... Do the two of you have some sort of pact?  That’s not…”

“A pact? What? No. Smecker, can’t ye see? We have to stay together. And I... If I could be absolutely sure Con is going to hell, then I’d do it myself.  But I don’t know. What if our mission absolves the sin? What if it does? We can’t take that chance.”

He tries to process what that means; what the fuck is even going on. “Murphy. Just. Give me a minute. Let me think for a minute. Go. Go check on Connor and let me think.”

Murphy goes.

He blinks into the darkness of the shitty little backyard of the shitty little safe house and exhales slowly.

When Murphy returns with the news that Connor is still out but breathing a little easier, he asks the question. The only one his mind has managed to form since Murphy sent it reeling with his request.

“Why do you think God would send you to Hell for doing His work?”

“We don’t.” Murphy swallows. For some reason, he’s blushing again. “There’s uh. A different sin.”

“What?”

“A different sin. One we might go to Hell for. But I won’t go into it.”

“Oh no. Fuck you, Murphy. You don't get to ask me to do something like this and then get all cagey and not explain. You realize what you’re asking me?”

“I know. I know and I’m sorry. But we can’t share this. We won’t. It’s private. Ye are just going to have to believe me.”  

He thinks through everything he’s learned tonight as if he is working a case. When he believes he’s found the answer, he looks over. “Is it prostitutes?” He grins at Murphy in a friendly way. “The sin?”

“Prostitutes? We don’t fucking go to prostitutes. Look, just forget it. We won’t ever tell ye, so just forget I asked ye to do this. I’ll figure out another way.”

He keep grinning, despite Murphy’s scowl.  “Sex clubs, then? Kinky stuff?” 

Murphy is outright glaring.

He presses on, “You have bruises on your shoulders. Some chick has obviously bitten Con-”

Murphy is up with a snarl, jerking him upright by his lapels. “Fuck ye, fuck ye, fuck ye. No fucking girl has touched Connor, put her filthy mouth on him.” He shakes him. “No one touches Connor. Fucken no one.”

Beyond startled, he stares into Murphy’s angry, indignant face. Murphy looks like a jealous boyfriend. Like a lover, possessive and angry at the mere suggestion.

Without thought and before he can catch himself the word slips out with a whisper of breath, “Incest.”

Incest and Murphy’s teeth sinking into Connors hip bone. Incest and kisses with stubble scraping. Incest and tattooed fingers sliding along sweaty skin. Incest and Connor’s hands fisting dark hair. Incest and fingers gripping onto shoulders. Incest and Murphy murmuring filthy words against his brother’s spine.

Incest.

Murphy lets go, breathing hard.

Smecker takes two shaky steps back. There’s nothing but the crickets. A breeze.

He regains his composure. “Murphy, I-”

There’s a Beretta in his face.

His eyes travel over the barrel and up the arm until they focus on Murphy’s cold, serious face.

Murphy steps closer, sliding the barrel along his cheek and resting it against his temple. “Listen to me closely. What’s between me and Con is _ours_ and no one else’s fucking business.” His voice is a growl, low and resolute. “And if you _ever_ speak that fucking word again, I will end you.”

They stay like that for a moment. And then Murphy steps back, lowers his gun and makes for the door.

“Murphy. Wait! I’ll do it. I’ll do it.”

Murphy freezes and Smecker moves towards him, speaking quickly. “I’ll do it. I promise.”

Murphy tucks his gun into the back of his jeans, scrubs a hand over his mouth. “Why? Because I pulled a gun on ye? Threatened ye? It wasn’t even about that. Just forget it, Smecker. Forget we ever asked.”

“No. I’m sorry. I just...” He feels desperate to make up for his transgression. In his mind, like shuffling a card deck, memories fold together; the brothers leaning into each other, laughing, happy with arms slung comfortably over shoulders. Connor’s eyes tracking Murphy’s every move. The number of times he has heard from one or the other: “Don’t ye touch my brother.” Once, after a job, they stood in the shadows with their foreheads pressed together and hands on the back of each other’s necks. And he longed to feel that again - the sweet relief of knowing the person who really matters is okay. Because that means you’re okay.

He’s not okay.

“No,” he says again. “I’ll do it because I know what it’s like to love someone.”

Murphy smiles, sweet and pretty. He reaches out and grips his shoulder. “Thank ye. Yer a good man.” He grins and pats Smecker’s cheek. “Ye fuckin’ pansy.” They laugh together. Then, Murphy goes back inside to his brother.

Alone on the porch, he lights another cigarette and thinks about the twins and codependency and violations of civil and moral law.

***

He pauses his story and leans over the bed, breathing in the smell of bleach and lysol. He touches the hair of the man lying there, whose body is curling in despite the daily physical therapy. His hair is shorter than how he wore it before.

Before that night and the subsequent hospital stay and eventual long term care facility.  

Before.

He whispers, “Remember the day you made detective? We went to see ‘Don Giovanni’ and then later at dinner when you spoke to the waitress with your head turned, a lock of hair slipped under your collar, tucking in there against the skin of your neck. I don’t know if I ever told you that’s what set me off, how much I wanted to just push that lock aside and replace it with my tongue, licking your skin, dipping under the collar of your starched white shirt...That’s what made me lean forward and whisper, “Let’s go. Right now.” You gave me that crooked smile, the one that crinkles your eyes, and we threw down a bunch of money and left without dinner.”

He sits back down and picks lint off his trousers. “I wondered what you would say. I always do when I’m faced with moral decisions. You have this way of looking at things from all angles. And I relied on that. And now...I’m constantly questioning myself. All these years I have wondered over and over if I am doing the right thing. I’ve berated myself for failing to ever discuss it with you - what if something happened - our work puts us in danger. And we never talked about and I miss you and I don’t know if I am doing the right thing.” He blinks back wetness.“Perhaps I’m being selfish, but I can’t let you go, Gordon. I just can’t give up hope.”

***

Several hours after the sun has risen, Connor wakes and the doctor returns. It’s anticlimactic, actually. The doctor declares Connor is “going to recover” and Murphy, on his knees, prays his thankfulness into the back of Connor’s hand which he holds pressed to his mouth.

Shortly after the doctor leaves, he sends Dolly and Duffy home and goes back into the bedroom to talk to the twins. Connor is awake, but Murphy is asleep at the foot of the bed, curled around and over his brother’s legs. Connor’s hand rests on his brother’s head.

“Connor,”  he says, grinning his relief. “You scared the shit out of us.”

“Aye and I’m sorry for it.” He glances at Murphy’s head, pushing his hair back with his hand. “I’m sorry about the guy he killed. I know that makes this harder for ye. Murph didn’t even remember it. Kept asking Dolly, ‘really?’” He smiles down at his sleeping brother.

“We’ll figure it out. Don’t worry about it. You two will need to take a break for a while and probably get out of Boston, but I’ll work it out. How are you feeling?”

“Not too grand. My side fucking hurts. Doc says it’s the ribs, but they’ll heal. He left painkillers and antibiotics.” He looks at his brother again. “I’m worried about Murph - he didn’t sleep. Just prayed all night. He looks wrecked.”

Fucking Connor, stabbed in the lung, and he’s worried because Murphy was sad. “Well,” he says, pulling up a chair and watching Connor carefully, “It did take some work to convince me to murder him if you died.” He notices the bruise again. This close, he really can see the teeth marks. Murphy’s teeth.

Connor grins brightly, “And ye promised.”

“I did.”

“Yer a good man, Smecker. Knew it as soon as we met ye.”

“You know this isn’t okay. You can’t be cool with your brother wanting to die if you do. It’s really fucked up.”

Connor shrugs, then winces. “We stay together. I would have asked ye the same, positions reversed.”

He nods and stares at the carpet. It’s an off-white. Or maybe it’s white and really dirty. He tries to form a sentence involving psychotherapy and unhealthy and mutual dependence, but fails at the task.

“Smecker,” Connor says. His expression is uncompromising. “I know ye know. And I don’t care about yer opinion or condemnation, but this has to remain a secret. Ye understand that.”

Murphy told him everything. Of course he did. They don’t have secrets from each other.

“I understand it’s completely private. I’ll never mention it. Except to say: If you ever want help, I can help you find someone.”

“Someone?”

“Like a therapist or-”

“What the fuck would we need a therapist for?”

“Develop a more healthy, less codependent relationship, wean away-”

“With all due respect, Smecker, fuck off.”

“Maybe a priest? Surely at confession…” he trails off.

Connor laughs weakly. “Ye don’t confess what ye aren’t sorry for. It doesn’t work like that.” He tenderly pushes Murphy’s hair back again, but when he speaks his voice is low and steely. “We aren’t interested in changing anything. What’s between Murph and I is ours. Don’t make me fucking tell ye again. I’ll not have it tainted.”

He nods. Only Connor MacManus could sound fucking threatening, bandaged, broken and lying in bed.

He stands up. “Do you need anything? Glass of water?”

“We’re good.” Connor smiles. They shake hands. “And thank ye. We won’t forget it.”

He turns out the light and pauses in the doorway. “Connor? If Murphy was injured and he didn’t die, but was brain dead and kept alive by machines, would you let him go?”

Connor’s raspy voice answers swifty from the shadowy room. “I love my brother. If he were taken from me but there was a sliver of a chance of having him back, I would hold onto that sliver like it was the most precious thing.”

Hold onto it like the most precious thing, the most precious thing.

He says goodnight even though it’s late morning and crashes on a ugly, brown couch in the shitty little living room.

When he wakes, it is late afternoon sometime. The house is quiet. He gets up, pisses, fixes his hair, washes his hands and goes into the bedroom quietly, pausing to peer in from the doorway in case they are asleep.  

They aren’t.

They’re kissing. Murphy’s hand is pressed over Connor’s heart, the rest of him curling around his brother. Connor palms the back of Murphy’s head, fingers threading through his hair. There is an occasional peek of a tongue, glint of teeth, but mostly just soft, slow kisses as if they are relishing in each other. One of them sighs and it sounds like music.

He backs out on tip toes and stands in the hallway, pressing his forehead against paneling that dates to the seventies, and thinks over what Connor had said about the most precious thing.

***

He stands up and stretches. “Connor’s recovering at a small beach house on an island off the coast of North Carolina. The house belongs to a friend of mine from college. It needed some caretakers. About half a year, I think, before they can safely come back to Boston. Murphy is very excited about living at the beach.”

He looks down at the bed. He closes his eyes and sees a young man with hair a little too long and a crooked smile that crinkles his eyes, morning sunlight and a puddle of white sheets.

“I love you, Gordon. I’ll never give up on you.” He presses a kiss to his hair, strokes it. “Not as long as there’s a sliver of hope. A single sliver.”

He goes out and finds that the rain has stopped.   


End file.
